The Rearview Mirror
by Andrew Fisher15
Summary: A five part story, Spider-Man and Black Cat. Peter's unhappy life needs a serious change, and Felicia Hardy is just the one to make it happen. Part action, part plot, and part Black Cat/Spider-Man! I get great reviews at this type of writing-you'll be glad you clicked!
1. Denial

"_In the end I'm realizing,_

_I was never meant to fight on my own!_"

—On my Own

* * *

It was two in the morning, but most of the buildings still had lights on. Peter sat down near the edge of the residential tower he had landed on, looked at the few cars still driving along, at the other buildings. The glow of artificial lighting made it feel unnatural, unreal… the night was indeed a different world than daylight. He glanced at a still partially lit-office building, open windows and bright lights making the inside visible for blocks. Movement caught his eye in one, and he watched as a laughing man and woman started making out happily on top of a desk. He looked for a moment longer, but then forced himself to turn away when buttons started getting undone.

"Too pg-13?" A soft, mocking voice asked. Peter turned, not surprised at the silver-haired woman walking—he'd say swaggering—up to him. Her green eyes shone from behind her mask, and he saw her gaze go from him back to the couple. A grin tugged at her lips.

"I'm trying to cut down on the pervin'." Peter shrugged, trying to sound casual, and trying to keep his eyes from wandering down the plunging neck of her dark costume, showing off a remarkably fit and toned body.

"Or you just don't like that **someone** is having a good night?" Cat teased, her eyes glittering as she looked past him to the far off pair. "Instead of watching life pass them by in the rearview mirror?"

"I make a difference." Peter said stoically. "I help people."

"And leave yourself to rot. Misery, depression, and poverty. Your three best friends," she purred, sitting down next to him, glancing at the couple in the building briefly. "You could be powerful. Make a real difference. But instead you'd rather grab purse snatchers."

"I'll have made a difference to the girl who got mugged." Peter remarked.

"And you know why that girl can't take of herself?" Black Cat said in a low voice. "Because if she had a handgun tucked into a holster here-" she ran a hand down and pressed her hand in the small of his back—"the police will throw her in prison for a decade or two or three. So the police **you** protect help make sure that those women are nearly helpless to anyone with more muscle mass. How's that irony for you?" He froze for a moment. He hadn't considered it before, and it took him a moment to find a comeback.

"What, should I go fight the cops? The law is the law." Peter said. "Same reason why I'm not going to spend much time with a cat burglar."

"Is my hobby really so bad?" She shrugged innocently, looking out over the city. "You read much Shakespeare?"

"No." Parker said, unsure of where that was going.

"_Henry IV_." Cat said patiently. "Hotspur dueled Hal, and died in an epic battle. You know why he died?"

"Didn't dodge a sword fast enough?" Parker asked.

"Because he represented courageous virtue, honor, in a society that had abandoned it." She said off handedly. "he was in a society that was corrupt from the top down. The rulers were criminals. So why would anyone else be better than their rulers? They didn't, because everyone who stole or lied could say, 'Well, the King is a liar and a murderer, so why should I feel bad?' "

"It doesn't work that way." He protested. "What's right is right, whether or not some politician is doing so."

"Oh, really?" She asked wryly. "Is that why the police would throw anyone who tried to take care of themselves in prison? Because it's wrong to not need someone to swing down and save her helpless self? Tell me Spider, who has more prison years waiting , me or you?"

"What, you think all the women in this city need handguns, and crime will get solved?" Parker rolled his eyes, getting up and taking a few steps away from her, putting some distance between them.

"Because you graduated from police academy, so you're _qualified_ to fight crime, unlike normal citizens?" She purred mockingly. "So in the end, you're helping to keep a system propped up that makes for targets. You make people feel safe, so don't feel a need to actually protect themselves—and they don't realize they'd go to prison with the rapists and murderers if they did. Thank you Spider-boy."

"I refuse to believe that." He said stoically. He heard a laugh, turned.

She was gone.

* * *

Part one of out five chapters planned, and yes, next chapters will be longer. Leave a review if you liked it!


	2. Anger

Chapter 2, a little later than would be good. But hey, it's longer, at least. While I'm here, what do you guys think of Felicia Hardy being a bit more of a thinker, such as how she cited Shakespeare to Peter?

Anyway, so as you no doubt deduced, this is a 5 part ficlet about Peter Parker basically waking up to the harsher realities of life, and in a way, taking control of his life, instead of being perpetually miserable and poor, haha. Read and review!

* * *

"_Bring me out_

_Come and find me in the dark now_

_Everyday by myself I'm breaking down_

_I don't wanna fight alone anymore!"_

"How can you say that?!" Peter exclaimed. "Look at these pictures! Look at the video going around on youtube! He took a bullet saving four people and you're calling him a menace?!"

"I can say it because it's my damn newspaper!" Jameson bellowed. "Now get out of my office before I fire you!"

"I'm not your employee!" Parker yelled back.

"I'll still fire you! Take the money or your damn pictures and get out!" J.J yelled. Peter hesitated, but need won out. He took the piece of paper and stormed out, slamming the door behind him and wincing. The wound still hurt in his shoulder, badly. It had just been a 9mm—but it had been a hollowpoint. He had had to dig the thing out, which had resembled a jagged metal flower more than a simple slug. He was healing much faster than a normal person, but it was still a pretty bad injury. Peter didn't have the money for real medicine, but he had bought some rubbing alcohol to disinfect it, painkillers, and sugar for the wound, which was apparently popular during the Napoleonic Era. Osmotic pressure, or something. He collected his money is silence, then went to the bathroom, gingerly moved the shirt. The bandage was now dark red, but the wound seemed clotted.

He took the slow elevator out of the building, the measley $75 in his pocket giving a little comfort as he hit the pavement again, and headed towards a corner gas station that had donuts and coffee. Across the street at some event, he noticed several NYPD cops with M4 assault rifles, and the anger burned a little higher. He had gotten more than a couple of those pointed at him while dressed up. Somehow, he had stomached it at the time. Maybe fear had outweighed the fury over being treated like a bank robber… he had seen plenty of other people get weapons pointed at them, too, for no good reason. Hell, he had been reading about worse everywhere. Some sap on New Mexico had gotten "detained" by police after rolling a stopsign, taken to a hospital to be anally probed for several hours because the police claimed he had drugs, and then billed for the procedures. True story.  
He wondered if other people just put up with it, like a person cowering to a snarling dog, or if they were just too helpless to do anything about it. Black Cat had inspired him to do research, and the results had just turned his stomach. She was right, at least in New England. And it was wrong.

And to top it off, he had just sold pictures of himself to a newspaper that hated him and would try to encourage more people to despise him, because he had no way of affording another meal without it.

Peter sighed, smacked his palm against his forehead.

* * *

The problem was New York, he decided from the little booth in the diner. Or himself. Or both. He awkwardly forked another couple of french fries into his mouth, clicking through job ads on his laptop. Or maybe the problem was he was spending all his free time as Spider-Man and making almost no money at it. Normal people worked paying jobs, a lot. Some of them as much as 40 hours a week… no wonder they had the money to not live in dumps. He looked up crime statistics… one NYPD website proclaimed just over 400 people had been murdered in New York City in 2012, the lowest in 50 years or whatever, and they attributed most of the decrease as being less gang violence. He let out a frustrated breath, took a huge gulp of the overly-expensive-but-impressive-milkshake. _And how long am I responsible to try to protect people? Spend the rest of my life broke, dealing with Jonah?_ He clicked through a few crime stories, leaving the job tabs alone for a moment. "_She cried rape—and no one helped._" Some _Today_ article from 2009… a woman named Maria was attacked and raped multiple times on a subway station, with multiple witnesses, who did nothing to help. Police didn't arrive for quite a while, according to the article, long enough that the rapist had gone for round 2.

He shut the laptop and focused on his food, fury rising up in his chest, again. Why couldn't people just watch out for each other? Were they just cowards? Or was it what Black Cat mentioned—and people were too afraid of getting killed, since they couldn't have weapons? _People make careers trying to answer these questions, _Peter groaned.

* * *

"Aww, Spidey looking all lonely tonight?" A familiar voice purred behind him. She didn't surprise him this time.

"More broke than lonely." Peter quipped. He could almost hear the woman's smirk. "Even my peanut butter supply is getting low."

"Well, a man with your talents can make money easily enough." She said, running a hand lightly across his back. She was as gorgeous as last time, a beautiful face only made more attractive by how happily satisfied she always seemed, the cat that got the canary.

"Let me guess, you've got a heist planned?" He asked sarcastically.

"We don't need a _heist_ to get _you _some spending cash." Cat said, grinning. "We could just rob criminals. You know the drug money seized just ends up in slush funds for the city, right?"

"What, knock over a crime lord?" Spidey asked, rolling his eyes. "How classy."

"Indeed it is." Cat said smugly. "Just ask the US Marshals, or the NYPD, or the FBI, they love seizing crime money, or any money they can claim might have come from drugs. You put in enough hours serving the public, it's only fair you should be paid... so you can continue your noble work. Don't you think all those girls who got their purses back would agree?" She obviously wasn't too concerned with him serving the public. She wanted him to go with her, do something she would love to do, something that not to long ago, he would have never considered.

But having good food, buying some clothing that he didn't have to find at goodwill, and not having to suck up to Jonah would be a high point of his year... but it would be low, stealing from criminals. Besides, even if law enforcement did it, how did that make it right...? He would find some way to make some cash, maybe take some more pictures, or get a better part time job… _between college debt and paying out the nose for a rat hole of an apartment?_ Parker mulled. _Screw it. The police do it to buy whatever, I'd just be doing it to get by, and keep saving lives._

"Got any places in particular in mind?" He asked. Cat grinned widely.

"The pattern is easy to recognize," She said helpfully, like an instructor. They were both perched on top of a dark building in a not-so-good part of town. "Some groups have a runner and a bag man, some groups just have sellers, you just have to time it before his boss picks up the cash. They do that to keep the guy from becoming too much of a target, but he'll still be loaded compared to you." Her eyes glittered as she watched a car stop, a hand came out of the window, and a hurried exchange was done. Drugs for cash. "Not only do you stop drug dealing, but there's no need to return any money. You go after the sellers, not the buyers."

"Wow, so dignified." Peter groaned. Cat shrugged.

"What do you do for money, then?" She asked wryly. "You spend a lot of time trying to save lives, I doubt you can have a real job. You wait tables? Work security two days a week? Deliver pizza?" He winced as she said the last guess. It was a blow to his self-confidence, going from a crime fighter to lowly pizza delivery boy.

"Point taken." He said. "So how'd you get into this? Hated working retail?"

"About as meaningful as being in an ant farm." She commented. "My dad taught me these things. When you know how crime works, it's easy to profit off it. Then you can actually have a life."

"I have a life!" Peter retorted, watching as another car bought, then left. He assumed Cat would tell him when to go for it.

"Ever noticed what type of movies are most popular in the United States?" Cat asked mildly.

"What does that have to do with anything?" He said, baffled. Cat stretched out beside him, pushing her hands up and rolling her shoulders, while pushing her chest out. Peter was glad his mask hid his eyes. She evidently had a lot of free time, because her body spoke of series hours in the gym.

"Tocqueville wrote hundreds of years ago, that because there was no aristocracy in the United States, _everyone_ spent their lives working, day in, day out. So the fiction they would want would be wild, completely different from their lives." She said. "And today, sci-fi is one of the biggest sellers in movies and books. And vampires, but that just shows how pathetic women are getting."

"Okay, but what's wrong with grand sci-fi?" Peter asked. "Some of those movies are pretty good."

"In the _Odyssey_, when Odysseus washed up on the island of the Phaeacians, he found a society a lot like ours." Black Cat continued smoothly, despite completely jumping eras and stories. "A society where everyone played it safe. The men loved sports, and light boxing and such, but were really just wimps, despite wanting to pretend themselves warriors."

"Like how everyone here loves football or baseball or whatever?" Peter asked. The girl nodded, shifting in her costume, running a hand down her gear belt, where she had weapons and equipment.

"The men acted brash around Odysseus, not knowing who he was. But when he started showing what he was made of, they backed down quickly. After a party, there was a bard, singing poet, telling stories. Since they didn't have dj's or movies back then." Her bright green eyes went from the drug dealer to him, becoming even more keen and alive. "The bard sang about the Trojan War, which was a complete opposite to the safe matriarchy on their island. But Odysseus, who had lost many friends in that war, wept, remembering the battles, remembering fighting."

"Okay…"

"The lesson is, entertainment should be about things you can actually relate to, in your life." She said. "Don't be a wimp watching war movies. Maybe you're a boxer. Go watch _Rocky_ and stuff. Maybe you're in security. Watch a crime movie."

"Huh." Peter mulled. He was surprised, and a bit intrigued. When she wasn't pulling off heists or making comments at him, she was quite the philosopher. His anger at life, at Jonah, at everyone, had been ebbing away since he had found her again. "Interesting. So make your entertainment something like your life—not fantasy."

"That, and change your life so that you actually have one worth hearing about." She smirked. Another buyer drove off, and she clapped. "Okay, time to have some fun. Just promise me you'll buy some nice underwear with the money."

* * *

It was almost too easy. At least, according to her. It just seemed like dirty play to him. Peter webbed the guy's hands to the wall, then checked his bag. Lots of little baggies with powder or pills in them.

"Sleeves." Black Cat said. Parker checked the guy's rolled up sleeves, and found a billfold hidden in each arm. Maybe a thousand dollars. Not life-changing, but Parker could definitely afford to go out for dinner now. And buy some new shoes, the cushioning on the back of his were patched with duct tape…

"Well, thanks for sticking around." Peter said, taking the man's drug stash. He'd drop that off with a cop.

His spider-sense tingled, and he looked up as a car screamed towards them.

"Go go go!" Felicia laughed, running down the alley, vaulting up a fire escape, as a huge man with a gun jumped out of the car, the webbed-up man's boss, or coworker. Parker ran after her, gave a huge jump, grabbed her in one arm, and managed to fire off a web line with the other, swinging them away. Some rare people were good enough with handguns to hit targets hundreds of yards away—but pretty much no one was skilled enough to hit a person in the dark making a swinging getaway 50 yards off.

And then it was 100 yards, then 200, then they were on top of a building, the city was bright and cheerful again, and the beautiful girl on the cat-suit was laughing happily, and life was a lot better than it had been that morning.

"See how easy things can be when you're smart?" She teased, her voice breathy and intimate, her eyes shining.

"What, no pithy philosophy for me now?" He joked back, smiling hugely under his mask.

" 'A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes life merry, but money is the answer for everything.' " She said, more than a little cocky. "And that's your lesson for today."

"_Bring me out,_

_From the prison of my own pride,_

_My God, I need a hope I can't deny!_

_In the end I'm realizing _

_I was never meant to fight on my own!"_

—On My Own, by Ashes Remain


End file.
